Italy : Florence Part 2

I'm recapping the trip to Italy I took in January. 

You can find my recaps of Rome here (Part 1, Part 2, & Part 3) and Florence Part 1. 

The Accademia Galley

The Accademia is home to Michelangelo's David, the real one, not the replica. The statue is huge (17 feet tall) and sculpted from one piece of marble. I'm pretty sure I stood there with my jaw hanging open. Kinda incredible that Michelangelo was able to sculpt so much detail so many years ago without the tools we have today. This is really a must see in Florence.

Santa Croce Square

We wandered around this cute little square while on the hunt for a taxi stand in preparation for the next day's travel to Venice.

Up next... a cappuccino and pastry break! 

We needed some extra energy for our next adventure.

Florence Cathedral

The Florence Cathedral is the biggest and most notable cathedral in Florence. It consists of different buildings, including the Baptistry, Bell Tower and Duomo. One of the unique things is that you can climb to the top of the Duomo and take in Florence from a different view. It's 463 steps to the top of the dome, hence the need for coffee beforehand.

It's all fun and smiles... until you have to climb all those stairs...

 A view of the inside of the cathedral from ground level.

 The passages were very narrow while climbing to the top of the dome. Some past visitors left their memoirs.

About halfway up, you go back into the dome and can look down in the cathedral.

See those people down there? That's where I took the other photo of the cathedral.

Every so often, there were openings where you could see outside. See the tall tower towards the right? That's the Uffizi!

The steepest stairs to get to the very top.

We made it!

The top of the dome has space to walk around with a few benches. There are about 6 arches that go around the little viewing area.

There's still so much detail in the architecture, even at the top of this huge cathedral.

 View of the Bell Tower from the dome.

View of the Bell Tower from the ground.

Santa Croce Square (where we were earlier in the day)

Check back for my recaps on our final Italian city: Venice!